Editor's letter - Still a great job to be done.

(From Financial Director)

We've lost count of the number of times we've written about that well-worn cliche, 'the changing role of the finance director'. The role has changed. It changed years ago - perhaps even decades ago. It is still changing. It will always change. Change, to use another great cliche, is the only constant. For that matter, if it weren't for change, we would hardly need so many financial directors. You might say that the reporting and stewardship roles of the FD require the incumbent to reveal the extent to which things have changed, and to ensure they don't change through impropriety.

We find ourselves returning to this subject partly as a result of a survey that suggests FDs are retrenching to their traditional stewardship role since the collapse of Enron and the imposition of entire forests of "thou shalt not" rules, regulations and laws (details of the survey are to be found in Financial Directions on page 51). The survey didn't surprise us since Sarbanes-Oxley obviously sent a ...